What counts as an artist?

Say Artist A draws a comic. Tagging A as an artist is obvious.
Animator B then animates the comic (with proper crediting, and also permission from A, so not plagiarism). Tagging B as an artist also feels appropriate.

But the animation also involves several (independent) people voicing the characters. Whom are accredited within the credits section included in the animation itself (with their Twitter handles). Would tagging them be inappropriate then? Even those who provided 'major' voice roles?

Basically, I'm not sure whether the "artist field" should only be used for people who contributed visual elements, or that it can also include other people who played major roles in the, well, "artistic creation" of a work, even if their contributions aren't visual.

I think voice actors and animators should be credited as artists, just like how we credit both the original artist and the colorer for colorized pictures, or credit all involved artists for collaborations. I believe live2d riggers are already credited when known for live2d official_art virtual_youtuber posts.

The obvious issue however in the case of voices is that when the people giving the voice are also people who draw pictures hosted on danbooru, as a lot of vtubers are, we'd end up with their artist tags being a mix of their drawings and of their voices.

I think it's not unreasonable to create a specific voice actor artist tag like ninomae ina'nis (voice) or something like that to denote that she's being credited for the voice, not because she drew the picture, for example. I'm talking about things like post #4503539, or post #4575496.

We'd have to pick the right qualifier however, and force its standardization, otherwise it'll quickly become a mess. "Voice actor/actress" doesn't sound right because often these animations are drawn afterwards, so they're not fullfilling a true actress voice. We'd also have to add a note to both their character and "main" artist wikis whenever these tags are created. Though I guess in case of porn 3d posts where the voice actor is just doing moans, it'd fine to use (voice) as a qualifier.

For further context the posts that prompted this are post #4582049, post #4582082 and post #4582090. Basically collaborated animation work (with most of the involved people meeting off-line) to animate and voice five pages of one of Ishiyumi-sensei comics.

I was tagging the credited people, then Danbooru's system prompted me to create artist library entries, at which point I thought it might not be what the artist field system is intended for and so I went asking in the forums for clarification.

nonamethanks said:

I think voice actors and animators should be credited as artists, just like how we credit both the original artist and the colorer for colorized pictures, or credit all involved artists for collaborations. I believe live2d riggers are already credited when known for live2d official_art virtual_youtuber posts.

The obvious issue however in the case of voices is that when the people giving the voice are also people who draw pictures hosted on danbooru, as a lot of vtubers are, we'd end up with their artist tags being a mix of their drawings and of their voices.

I think it's not unreasonable to create a specific voice actor artist tag like ninomae ina'nis (voice) or something like that to denote that she's being credited for the voice, not because she drew the picture, for example. I'm talking about things like post #4503539, or post #4575496.

We'd have to pick the right qualifier however, and force its standardization, otherwise it'll quickly become a mess. "Voice actor/actress" doesn't sound right because often these animations are drawn afterwards, so they're not fullfilling a true actress voice. We'd also have to add a note to both their character and "main" artist wikis whenever these tags are created. ...

Those are all very good points, and I agree with all of them. I'd second "_(voice)" as the qualifier too (for voicework). Can't think of anything better. I'd use the qualifier too even when the 'voice actor' doesn't have any art hosted, just for consistency and to make it easier for people to tell at a glance which people are being credited for voicework.

And I guess we'd avoid things like _(animator) or _(music) or _(sound editor) for now.

Though yes, this is more work to write the necessary wikis and artist library entries. I suppose there is no need to create a separate a library entry if the only examples hosted so far on Danbooru are voicework? Just a single name_(voice) wiki should suffice, right?

nonamethanks said:

Though I guess in case of porn 3d posts where the voice actor is just doing moans, it'd fine to use (voice) as a qualifier.

I'd agree. Though I've a feeling that most people doing such voices (for porn) probably wouldn't want to be credited anyway. Perhaps only credit these voices if it's present in the credits (in the animation or commentary), or if it's 'obvious' (e.g. the person is also credited elsewhere)?

If something like this is to be done can we reserve a special character for such profession qualifier so it's easier to group all tags attributing the same person with a wildcard search? Or any other simple measure to prevent the sheer amount of tag qualifiers overwhelming the search for a specific person for that matter.

Illustrative example:

You want to search for the other tags concerning 'take_(voice)'
wildcard search 'take_(*' returns
take_(shokumu-taiman)
take_(trude1945oneetyan)
take_(draghignazzo)
take_(illustrator)
take_(office-t)

Granted, tags shouldn't be that laconic but I don't think it's that exaggerated of an example. Maybe proper use of URL search can make keeping the tags organized easier?

I've ran into some peculiar cases like IOSYS, where even things made by them are tagged as copyright tags.

I'm bumping this because I'm noticing people making wiki-less artist tags like pixie_willow and siamofu for voice actors.

I think if we're going to go the route of tagging voice actors, we either need to quickly and definitively enforce a qualifier or straight up implement a fifth tag category for them. It's pretty confusing to see a post with 3 artist tags. NNT earlier said it'd quickly become a mess and, well, six months of inaction and I'm wondering if there's not a mess already made.

A dirty solution would be tagging voice actors as *_(voice_actor). Maybe as meta tags if not artist tags.
Honestly it's terrible, but i'm throwing it here anyways, the idea may be brought into a better path

No, we're not making an entirely new category for tags that would apply to 0.06% of the posts on site (actual number). voice_actor_name_(voice_actor) works fine.

There is a possibility of it being confused for (professional) voice actors being depicted as characters, though currently all such examples (as chartags) are either unqualified or use *_(seiyuu) as the qualifier.

That being said, I am supportive of NNT's suggestion. It's better than leaving them unqualified currently. If any problems pop up later on (e.g. Western professional VA chartag with an ambiguous name) we can deal with those later.

BUR #8136 has been approved by @evazion.

create alias tempty_(voice_actress) -> tempty_(voice_actor)

forum #201561
Of course one could search for *_(voice_* to find both/all genders (with false positives) but I think it is more intuitive to have just one qualifier.
Actor used to be and is nowadays again used as a gender-neutral term.

Adding this here instead of topic #7713 because it is supposed to be a general decision on how to qualify voice actors in the future.

Veradux said:

I'm bumping this because I'm noticing people making wiki-less artist tags like pixie_willow and siamofu for voice actors.

I think if we're going to go the route of tagging voice actors, we either need to quickly and definitively enforce a qualifier or straight up implement a fifth tag category for them. It's pretty confusing to see a post with 3 artist tags. NNT earlier said it'd quickly become a mess and, well, six months of inaction and I'm wondering if there's not a mess already made.

FYI but VA's can be drawn artwork artists, too.

Also, what do you mean "wiki-less"?
99% of artists don't need a wiki.
All that's needed are up-to-date URL lists & alternate names.

The bulk update request #8136 (forum #201631) has been approved by @evazion.